WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The High Republic: Trail of Shadows #1, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
While the Nihil have emerged as the strongest enemy in the Star Wars: The High Republic subseries, the Jedi are still in the dark about the Nihil's deadliest weapon. In Star Wars: The High Republic: Trail of Shadows #1 (by Daniel José Older, David Wachter, Giada Marchisio, and VC's Joe Sabino), Emerick Caphtor is assigned to investigate the death of Loden Greatstorm at the battle of Grizal. During his investigation, Emerick is consistently reminded of an old children's nursery rhyme, "Shrii Ka Rai Ka Rai." While Emerick dismisses the rhyme as an old memory, the end of the issue shows that the song may hold the key to learning the killer's identity and abilities.
While the Jedi are still unaware of the identity of the creature responsible for the death, it has already been revealed that the culprit is the Great Leveler under the command of Marchion Ro. Throughout the first arc of Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, Marchion collected the pieces to a mysterious artifact. Cavan Scott's Star Wars: The High Republic: The Rising Storm reveals that the artifact is actually a control rod for the Great Leveler, a creature that targets force sensitive people and specifically feeds on fear. Both Loden Greatstorm and his Padawan Bell Zettifar are attacked by the creature, and Loden is reduced to a husk of ash that crumbles when touched. While Bell Zettifar is a living witness, he is so traumatized by the attack that he does not know exactly what happened, leading to Emerick's investigation.
The nursery rhyme "Shrii Ka Rai Ka Rai" first comes up in a conversation between Stellan Gios and Emerick about Loden's death. Emerick analyzed Loden's ashes but could not find any biomatter that could be linked directly to Greatstorm or any trace of midichlorians to indicate that the ashes had ever belonged to a Jedi in the first place. Stellan begins humming the tune to himself without realizing it, and neither he nor Emerick can remember all of the words to the song. This sets an eerie tone for the rest of the issue, but it also shows that the Jedi may know more about the creature than they realize.
Emerick explains that "Shrii Ka Rai Ka Rai" was a song from their childhood. He states, "Old Vidyarvrikt used to sing it to us when we were Younglings and wouldn't go to sleep. Trying to terrorize us into being well behaved, I imagine." While young Jedi are meant to overcome their fears as a part of their training, deliberately using terror as a tactic for obedience seems contradictory to the Jedi Code. It also does not seem to be an effective way to get children to sleep precisely because it could scare them so much that sleep would become impossible. Vidyarvrikt might have been using the song as an obedience tool, but he also might have been trying to warn the Younglings of a possible danger out there, lurking in hibernation, that could destroy them all.
Emerick thinks that he and Stellan are just remembering the song because of the fear they feel in response to Loden's death and the Nihil's continued onslaught on the galaxy. As he explains to his droid Q2, "the song rises within Stellan because it is attached to the memory of a feeling [..] neither of us have felt since those dark nights when we would hear that song, thirty-five years ago. Fear." Thus, Emerick thinks that the song is an echo of his childhood, unrelated to the investigation at hand. Even after Stellan remembers that the final word was "dust," Emerick believes that the song and the murder are unconnected.
In the battle with the Nihil during a fact-finding mission to Vrant Tarnum, Emerick remembers the full lyrics to the song. As the battle rages, the lyrics are splashed across the page. After the battle, Emerick and Q2 find the words "Shrii Ka Rai Ka Rai" etched on the walls of a cave, and Emerick realizes that the song is connected with Loden's death after all.
This reveal shows that the nursery rhyme could actually have been written about the Great Leveler, and the Jedi might have some information in their past archives about the Nihil’s deadliest weapon. The "we" in this song could refer to multiple Levelers, or it could refer to the cult that kept the Leveler safe for centuries as their hatred for the Jedi and Force users grew. While the fear that Emerick and Stellan felt as children hearing the song might have just been because the song is creepy, their fear might also be caused by a residual echo in the Force of the atrocities that the Leveler has committed in the past and the possible horrors the Leveler will commit in the future.